The Netanyahu government is getting ready to roll out the red carpet for former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, due to visit Israel next week

That makes Palin the latest in a procession of possible 2012 Republican presidential contenders to make the de rigor pilgrimage; she was preceded by former Ark. Gov. Mike Huckabee, who has visited enough to qualify for an aliyah stipend, former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani, former Mass. Governor Mitt Romney and Mississippi governor Haley Barbour.

You know elections are in the offing when Congress starts playing games with the endless issue of moving the U.S. embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, and sure enough, with 2012 just around the corner, the issue is back in the legislative hopper.

JTA is reporting that Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-Fla), chair of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, and others are pitching a bill that would strip presidential waiver authority from the 1995 Jerusalem Embassy Act.

There's been a lot of buzz in recent days about Mormons in politics – and the claim that church members, long the victims of discrimination in the political world, may be coming into their own in much the same way as Jews have entered the political big leagues in recent decades.

Former Mass. Governor Mitt Romney remains a strong contender for the 2012 GOP presidential nomination; Jon Huntsman Jr. , a former Utah governor and now U.S. ambassador to China, is widely expected to make a run for the nomination.

Rep. Steve Israel of Long Island, newly appointed chair of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, discusses the Arizona shootings, efforts to retake the House in 2012, J Street, the Obama administration's Mideast policies, gun control and more in an interview with The Jewish Week on 1/18/11.

Update: the National Jewish Democratic Council just released a statement praising Lieberman for his "years of dedicated and loyal service" and saying that "his presence and voice in the Senate will be missed."

It'll be hard to find anybody who's surprised at today's expected announcement that Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) is calling it quits next year after four terms in the Senate.